Trip

I'm anxious to test a new release as soon as you deem it ready! - Trip

That I hadn't run into the roaming limit before and I thought it didn't seem to be strictly applied to US Cellular. - Trip

Going to update my previous statement on roaming; I apparently went over my roaming limit yesterday. I woke up this morning to the first webpage I tried to open telling me that I'm over my limit for the month. - Trip

When I was in Buckingham County a few weeks ago, I had no issue with US Cellular. And, of course, my parents' house down in Charlotte County has nothing but US Cellular and it worked fine there. What's interesting, though, is that my US Cellular phone will not roam on nTelos at all, and prefers Verizon in those areas. - Trip

If the antennas are right across the street, should a Magic Box even be needed? The other carriers don't seem to have issues keeping PCS or AWS going inside the store. (AT&T and T-Mobile are on the same building; Verizon is nearby on a water tower.) Next time I'm there (which isn't often) I'll check again, just in case I'm remembering incorrectly about the other carriers. If every building needs a Magic Box to make the Sprint B41 network function, even right next to macro equipment, then Sprint's going to be in trouble. That's a huge hardware outlay depending on having permission from every building owner in the country. And it's an issue the other carriers don't seem to have. - Trip

I don't know if my expectations are too high for Band 41 or what, but in this area I find the Clear gear to be very disappointing in its performance. For example, the Clear site at King Street Metro, basically across the street from the Metro station, sits at around -100 dBm on the train. In fact, about half the time, sitting in that spot I connect to the 1101 King Street 8T8R at about the same signal level. Additionally, there is only one B41 carrier on that site. The Clear site at Beacon Hill doesn't seem to get into the Giant grocery store, with my connection inside usually being B26 despite, again, being right across the street. Despite better line of sight to the Clear site at Huntley Meadows Park, at Costco I'm just as frequently on the 8T8R from INOVA Mount Vernon Hospital as I am on B26 from Huntley Meadows Park. The Clear signal is more or less absent inside the store. I've harped on the Clear signal from my home site enough, I think, so I won't retread here. I keep crossing my fingers that they'll replace the Clear gear with 8T8Rs, though at this point I'm just glad to see them finishing the LTE rollout and adding B41 to sites that currently have only B25/B26. Both have been a very long time coming. - Trip

It's definitely on more sites now than it used to be, though I don't know if that's all the 8T8R sites or not. (It's definitely on the ones I regularly pass by.) The big problem that I see is that there's so much Clear gear around that it seems almost like 50/50 whether you're on Clear or 8T8R, and the Clear gear can't do more than 2x CA. Some of them are still running just one B41 carrier, though at least two of the sites that used to be in that boat near me are now running two, so they're obviously working on that as well. - Trip

I can only speak for this local area, but in Fairfax County VA, Sprint has applied for permits to convert the four 3G-only sites near me to GMO LTE sites. Two of the permits are granted, two are pending, but they're obviously trying to get it done. - Trip

I think there's a bit of confusion about what a typical "booster" is versus one of the magic boxes. A typical booster does exactly what you suggest--it boosts the signal on-frequency. This can definitely cause interference problems for obvious reasons. The magic box, by contrast, creates its own separate B41 carrier on separate spectrum, using the local macro for backhaul on its original frequency. Licensed microwave requires an outdoor antenna and, of course, a point-to-point license from the FCC including the coordinates of both end-points. It would require additional antennas on the cell tower(s) as well. Suffice it to say, significantly less trouble to use 2.5 GHz. - Trip

Going to have to disagree with you, Arysyn. If we're actually going to make Internet access a utility, then fine. If not, and I don't believe it will happen any time soon, then I believe what you're suggesting would be worse, and not better, in many cases. For example, I much prefer the Shentel and former nTelos region to Sprint national. Look at the level of investment and activity. Look at how much better the service is. Money that's made in the region goes back into the region, and isn't used to subsidize other areas. Essentially, it creates incentive on a local basis for the network to perform well, because the results will feed into themselves. If the local network performs well, it will gain more users, which will in turn provide money to feed back into the network to perform better and attract more users. I'm not sure that model works as well on a national level because the national carriers can then choose to sacrifice investment in some areas to improve others. The smaller carriers don't have that option--they must serve the local area they're in or they're done. Obviously, this isn't a rule. It's entirely possible for a small carrier to do a poor job and go out of business entirely. But I definitely think it helps to create the right incentives, at least. - Trip

I'm sorry I've not had a chance to check into it; I've been utterly swamped at work for the past two weeks and I don't know when it will. - Trip

(Cross-posting in the DC Premiere thread.) Finally! I'm visiting my parents for the weekend, and just happened to open up my SCP log because I noted along the way that one of the 3G-only sites is now running LTE. But what caught my eye in the log was actually the fact that my log now contains three more sites with B41 third carrier! Braddock Road Metro, Huntington, and Mandarin Oriental all now have B41 third carrier in my log. - Trip

By contrast, my G5 used to hang onto B41 down to about -125 dBm, even though it couldn't actually use the service. It seems to have been recently improved and drops earlier. - Trip

My G5 is asking me to do an update. I'm about to run out the door, so I can't run it yet. - Trip

Charlotte County, VA. Speeds were acceptable--better than the 0 kbps my parents were getting on the home Internet. I was on the G5. The only catch was that every so often my phone would try to pick up the nTelos 1X 800 from Long Mountain overlooking Rustburg. It would drop the data session until it realized the signal was too weak to use. (I do wonder if an outdoor antenna would work for the nTelos signal; I used to watch W60BM, a PBS TV signal, from that mountain almost perfectly clearly until it signed off in 2008. Channel 60 was in the 700 MHz band, so 800 MHz wouldn't be that different.) - Trip

To the 100MB roaming limit, last time I was visiting my parents, I am pretty sure I went way over the 100MB of roaming and didn't get cut off or even a notice. (Their Internet was down and I was really bored, so I tethered my laptop via US Cellular LTE roaming.) - Trip

Mine too. - Trip

I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but I'm not certain. I think it only applies to the Cellular A and B blocks. - Trip

There's actually a lot of ground west of Richmond, even outside of the Southern Virginia market, where Sprint has no service or very sparse service. I'd love to see Shentel get involved in those areas. - Trip

This is excellent news. I have been across I-68 as well and I know how bad it is there right now. I just wish they'd rolled the few Sprint-managed Southern Virginia market counties into it. It's only 5 counties and the existing sites are nearly all running LTE already, they just need more sites. - Trip

In Charleston today, I saw Band 2 second carrier on Verizon and it was the _5 set. (0x0F, 0x19, 0x23) I'm wondering if _6 is a placeholder for a future second carrier on Band 5. The Band 5 carrier I saw with _7 was 10x10 centered at 885 MHz for downlink, which would be in the B-block. Since the entire band is 25x25, even if Verizon controls both licenses, they have to have two carriers to fill it with LTE since, according to Wikipedia at least, the Band 5 maximum bandwidth is 10x10 (though the Band 26 maximum is 15x15, so they could do a 10x10 Band 5 and a 15x15 Band 26). - Trip

Mike, When you're ready for it, I have updates on Verizon and AT&T sector ID/band correlations. I don't have the AT&T handy, but in Savannah, Verizon is running 10x10 Band 5 and it's on sector IDs 0x11, 0x1B, and 0x25. (That's decimal 17, 27, and 37.) That makes the Verizon pattern overall, in decimal, from what I can determine: Band 13: 1/2/3/4/5/6 Band 4: 12/22/32/42/52/62 Band 4 (second carrier) 13/23/33/43/53/63 Band 2: 14/24/34/44/54/64 Band 5: 17/27/37/47/57/67 I assume that _0, _1, _5, and _6 are in use elsewhere, but not sure with what association. Logically, I could imagine that _5 is Band 2 second carrier, but I haven't actually seen that to confirm. For AT&T, I was able to see some second carriers and sectors above gamma. I'll have to dig through the logs for those when you're ready. The one I do recall off-hand is that I saw a 6-sector site in Naples where 0x95 through 0x9A were in use for Band 30. (SCP currently only shows 0x95 through 0x97 as Band 30, with the other three sectors being just "LTE".) - Trip

If I give it a minute or two, it'll jump to LTE on its own. I'm just not that patient. - Trip

So let me follow up on my earlier post complaining about my Sprint service in Walterboro, SC with a post about my service in Naples, FL. Here in Naples, this is what cell phone service is supposed to look like. I spend most of my time on Band 41, and I've only dropped to 1X when I'm in the Everglades where all the carriers suffer, or when the phone is in my pocket--pulling it out and toggling Airplane Mode brings back LTE no sweat (and if I let it linger on 1X/eHRPD, it's perfectly usable). Service has been just fine for doing the things I typically do with my phone. In my hotel room, I'm usually on Band 25; where it's sitting right now, next to my computer which probably makes reception harder, I'm getting -108 dBm on Band 26. I've tried my phone in every eatery, store, and other destination I've been to here and service has been ubiquitous. So Sprint is obviously capable of building a good network. They've done so here. My guess is that optimization has been done here and in full, and it really shows. It also helps that most or all sites have B41 and there aren't lingering 3G-only sites here. (Except, again, in the Everglades, where I came across a single site where Sprint is still non-NV, AT&T is still HSPA-only, and Verizon has B13 only, probably at great expense.) - Trip

Says who? There is no universal definition of the regions of the US. I consider Virginia to be part of the southeast, and definitely part of the South. (I note that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who I would argue help to define the South, both were/are based in Virginia.) - Trip